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Geering ends career with Study Trusthttp://satrs.org.nz/news/geering-ends-career-with-study-trust/
<h2>At 96, Geering ends career while things gpoing well</h2>
<p><img class="left" style="float: left; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;" title="" src="http://satrs.org.nz/assets/Uploads/_resampled/ResizedImage179175-geering2.jpg" alt="geering2.jpg" height="175" width="179">Professor Sir Lloyd Gearing became a national ﬁgure in the 1960s when he was tried and acquitted on a charge of heresy by the Presbyterian Church. Now 96. he delivered The last lecture of his long and distinguished theological career at St Andrew's on the Terrace this week, The emeritus professor of religious studies at Victoria University was involved with the Jesus Seminar. a group that assessed the historical evidence for Christ, among many other contributions to academic debate and religious thought.</p>
<p><strong>How does it feel to be giving your final lecture?</strong></p>
<p>In some respects I'm sorry, but age catches up with you. It's better for me to stop while things are still going well.</p>
<p><strong>What was the last lecture on?</strong></p>
<p>I tried to link it with the start of the St Andrew's Trust for the Study of Religion and Society [at St Andrew's on The Terrace], when I spoke on the Image of the City. I talked about the way the whole idea of the city has evolved since the agricultural revolution 1000 years ago, to now.</p>
<p><strong>How have your views changed with age?</strong></p>
<p>They've changed all through my life ... You gradually come to have a much wider horizon. Today we're becoming very global and we're just as interested in disasters overseas as we are in something locally. That's all happened in my lifetime. There wasn't even any radio, let alone television, when I was young.</p>
<p><strong>Does the growth of fundamentalist religion worry you.</strong></p>
<p>Very much so. This century is a great test for the future of the human race. We're all becoming interdependent and that's brought a fresh clash of the great cultures. The conservative backlash now known as fundamentalism, is afraid of the future. It wants the security of the past. So the tensions are going to increase. There's no easy way of overcoming them.</p>
<p><strong>Do you believe the person we call Jesus existed?</strong></p>
<p>Oh yes. By and large, the evidence of his historical existence is pretty good. But we know we little about him. The Jesus Seminar gave me a more positive view than I had before. I'd gradually come to the conclusion we know practically nothing about Jesus. Through their work I became convinced we do know ... they speak of it as the footprints and voiceprints, and that's something.</p>
<p><strong>What does the Presbyterian Church think of you these days?</strong></p>
<p>I don't really know. I feel a bit sidelined. I'm still a Presbyterian Minister and, at the 70th anniversary of my ordination, the presbytery here had a celebration. The church at large tends to ignore me.</p>
<p><strong>What are your views on gay marriage and some of the debate we've had in New Zealand recently?</strong></p>
<p>Well, I'm pretty liberal on that. I can understand why the church is divided on the issue, but they were divided on slavery 200n years ago. They've got to work their way through it</p>
<p><strong>Which was the best lecture you've ever given?</strong></p>
<p>The ones dealing with religion and science. My recent ones on evolution = I did two series - moving from biological evolution to the evolution of thought. Those were as good as any I'd given.</p>
<p><strong>What do you think of Richard Dawkins? Is he overzealous?</strong></p>
<p>I'd think too narrow-minded. I'd agree with a fair bit of what he says but you've got to look at it in a longer context. The concept of God has been extremely important and is the basis of two great civilizations, out of which came the whole basis of empirical science. Some philosophers have said science would have never gotten off the ground without the idea of one God holding it all together.</p>
<p><strong>What was the last film you saw&gt;</strong></p>
<p>Wadjda, the first film produced by a woman in Saudi Arabia.</p>
<p><strong>What sort of music do you like to listen to?</strong></p>
<p>Oh, classical music. Beethoven.</p>
<p><strong>What five people, living or dead, would you like to have for dinner?</strong></p>
<p>Einstein, Jesus, Shakespeare - a great thinker - Queen Boudicca, and Queen Elisabeth I.</p>
<p><strong>Beer or wine?</strong></p>
<p>Red wine,. Cabernet sauvignon</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Interview: Alex Fensome</p>
<p>Used with permission of the Dom Post 10/5/2014</p>
<p> </p>Sat, 10 May 2014 00:00:00 +1200http://satrs.org.nz/news/geering-ends-career-with-study-trust/Introduction to Lloyd Geering’s final lecturehttp://satrs.org.nz/news/introduction-to-lloyd-geerings-final-lecture/
<p>Today’s event has been arranged by St Andrew’s Trust for the Study of Religion and Society. The purpose of the Trust is to provide learning opportunities for people in Wellington – and beyond – to engage in critiquing and valuing developments in religion, spirituality, arts and sciences, during changing economic and political times.</p>
<p>The Trust operates independently of the church and if you’re not already a member please ask Carmen at the back of the church for a membership form or sign up online at <a title="Become a member of the Trust" href="http://satrs.org.nz/[sitetree_link,id=213]" target="_blank">satrs.org.nz/join</a>. We really do need your support to put on events like today’s, both as an active member of the Trust as well as the all important financial support that members provide.</p>
<p>Today we will hear a lecture by Professor Lloyd Geering, the topic of which is ‘The Evolving City’. In a sense, it will be the culmination both of his 2012 series, ‘Evolution, the True Genesis,’ and his 2013 lecture series, ‘From the Big Bang to God’. This lecture, Professor Geering tells us, will be his last one for the Trust. Having offered more than a hundred lectures over the past thirty years, he feels he has done his bit.</p>
<p>I have no doubt that most of you here, today, won’t need me to tell you about Professor Geering. As this event is being recorded, however, and the recording will be available both as a DVD and viewable online through the Trust website at satrs.org.nz, I am going to say a little about Professor Geering for those of you, particularly overseas, who are watching this online or on a DVD.</p>
<p>Born in Rangiora in February 1918, Lloyd Geering embraced Christianity in 1937. He holds honours degrees in Mathematics and Old Testament Studies, and became a minister in the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand.</p>
<p>58 years ago, in 1956, he started teaching. He taught theology in Dunedin and Brisbane before being appointed Foundation Chair of Religious Studies at Victoria University of Wellington.</p>
<p>Since retiring from Vic thirty years ago in 1984, Lloyd has offered a steady stream of lectures through the St Andrew’s Trust for the Study of Religion and Society, of which he has been the Principal Lecturer and, of course, a founding member. There’s no coincidence I’m sure that the Trust was founded in 1984.</p>
<p>In all these years of teaching and lecturing, he has been a provocative commentator on issues theological, telling us that we must put aside the medieval world and instead allow ourselves to be guided by evidence, and reason. Lloyd Geering is without doubt one of this country’s leading public intellectuals. He is not just New Zealand’s greatest theologian but – more importantly, in my view – our greatest post-theologian.</p>
<p>Sir Lloyd Geering has quite possibly more decorations than Kirkcaldie and Stains. He was made a Companion of the Order of the British Empire in the 1988 new year honours list, and a Principal Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2001 – changed eight years later to Knight Grand Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit. He also holds New Zealand’s highest honour, having been admitted to the Order of New Zealand in 2007.</p>
<p>These honours are a recognition of a great mind. Please show your appreciation for Professor Lloyd Geering.</p>Tue, 06 May 2014 00:00:00 +1200http://satrs.org.nz/news/introduction-to-lloyd-geerings-final-lecture/Lloyd Geering to end his lectureship career at the age of 96http://satrs.org.nz/news/lloyd-geering-to-end-his-lectureship-career-at-the-age-of-96/
<p>When he recently turned 96 years of age, Professor Lloyd Geering decided to retire from his role as Principal Lecturer of the St Andrew’s Trust for the Study of Religion and Society. His final talk in that capacity will be given during the week of the opening of the new St Andrew’s Centre on Tuesday 6 May, 2014 at St Andrew’s on The Terrace in Wellington.</p>
<p><img class="leftAlone" style="float: left; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;" title="" src="http://satrs.org.nz/assets/Uploads/geering2.jpg" alt="geering2.jpg" height="176" width="180">“I am in good health and enjoying my tenth decade,” Professor Geering said.</p>
<p>“Through a long lifetime of publishing and lecturing, both within and outside of the St Andrew’s Trust, Professor Geering has offered a view of religion that appeals to mature and questing people as well as being vitally necessary in a world that is becoming more politically fractured and environmentally fragile,” said broadcaster and Trustee Noel Cheer.</p>
<p>“As the Trust’s Principal Lecturer, Professor Geering has delivered one or more series of lectures each year since 1984. Most of these lectures have an afterlife as booklets, CDs or DVDs,” Cheer said.</p>
<p>“While Professor Geering’s active involvement with the Trust will be greatly missed, it has been Wellington’s good fortune to have been the main location for these lectures. Rather than actively seeking one individual to step into Sir Lloyd’s shoes, the Trust will broaden its activities into different forms of lectureship,” Cheer said.</p>
<p>“His recent book, From The Big Bang to God: Our awe-inspiring journey of evolution, extends a publishing career which was launched in 1968 with God In The New World,” Cheer said.</p>
<p>Professor Geering was appointed the foundation Professor of Religious Studies at Victoria University of Wellington in 1971 and, more recently, has been involved in Biblical research in the company of scholars from the Westar Institute in the United States. In 2007, Professor Geering was admitted to the Order of New Zealand and two years later elevated to Knight Grand Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit.</p>Thu, 10 Apr 2104 00:00:00 +1300http://satrs.org.nz/news/lloyd-geering-to-end-his-lectureship-career-at-the-age-of-96/Lloyd Geering interviewed by Ted Meissnerhttp://satrs.org.nz/news/lloyd-geering-interviewed-by-ted-meissner/
<p>Study trust principal lecturer Professor Lloyd Geering was recently interviewed for the Secular Buddhist Podcast by Ted Meissner.</p>
<p>Listen to the interview <a href="http://secularbuddhism.org/2013/11/09/episode-186-sir-lloyd-geering-secular-christianity/" target="_blank">here</a> and subscribe to the podcast through the iTunes store <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-secular-buddhist/id333093081" target="_blank">here</a>. There’s no charge to subscribe to this podcast.</p>Thu, 30 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +1300http://satrs.org.nz/news/lloyd-geering-interviewed-by-ted-meissner/Keeping up to date with study trust newshttp://satrs.org.nz/news/keeping-up-to-date-with-study-trust-news/
<p>It’s 2014 and you can keep up to date with what’s happening with the study trust – that’s shorthand for the St Andrew’s Trust for the Study of Religion and Society – by following the RSS feed for the news pages on this website.</p>Tue, 28 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +1300http://satrs.org.nz/news/keeping-up-to-date-with-study-trust-news/